When I was reading Hikaru no Go last time, I was so engrossed in the story that I didn’t really take note of the actual game on the Go board. This time, I want to try to find out as much as possible about the actual games being played. I will only focus on the games where the board is visible in the manga, either fully or partially.
WARNING: May contain minor spoilers! Also, if you just want to enjoy the story, the information here may destroy it, so please read at your own risk.
So here are the games played in Chapter 1 of Go to Go.
Original Game: Unknown
It seems to be a one-sided game with white leading a lot. White has a huge potential in the centre which is almost becoming territory, and the shape on the bottom left is very bad for black.
I couldn’t find the original game for this. It could be one of Terayama’s unofficial games. If anyone can find it please let me know.
Original Game: Unknown
This is even harder to find as the game situation is unclear. I can’t even tell why Kousei resigned at this point. If anyone has any clues what this game is please let me know.
Original Game: Hinaya Rippo (B) VS Honinbo Dousaku with 5 Handicaps
Game Result: W+R
Apparently, this is a famous handicap game that appears in several books. The date of this game is unclear, but Dousaku became the head of the Honinbo house in 1677 and died in 1702 so it should be sometime in between.
It is said that Dousaku never had the opportunity to demonstrate his full strength as he played mainly handicap games. He is also said to have a strength of 13-dan.
Midori, aren’t you a bit too strong for your age at that time?
Original Game: Honinbo Retsugen (B) VS Yasui Senchi Senkaku
Game Result: W+R
Date: 30th December 1792
For the game against the hustler Kogane, it’s supposed to be an even game but the kifu used is actually a game with no komi. It’s a castle game played in 1792.
Yasui Senchi Senkaku is also known as Great Senchi and has been called the Grandfather of Modern Go. He was the strongest player of his day and even influenced Go Seigen and Kitani Minoru when they were coming up with their New Fuseki.
Kousei, aren’t you a bit too strong despite having a hiatus of four years?
Maybe our @Counting_Zenist can share more information about the players or the games in Games 3 and 4 above? 
I assume Waltheri didn’t help on the unidentified ones?
Yeah, I was surprised that Waltheri had games 3 and 4, but it didn’t help for games 1 and 2.
By that I suppose they meant 13p, which would mean that he could give 2-3 stones handicap to “regular” top pros, who usually had a rank of 7p during the Edo period. At that time, alternating between 2 and 3 stones handicap was the normal handicap for a 6p rank gap [Professional Go handicaps - Wikipedia]. A “normal” Meijin (=9p) would only give josen (1 stone handicap = black without komi) to 7p players.
I suppose that this assessment puts Dosaku at a similar level as Shin JinSeo, perhaps even a bit higher (although perhaps Dosaku has an advantage here because there were basically no time limits in his time).
I can’t imagine Shin Jinseo giving other tops pros handicap and still winning though. Maybe the strength gap between the pros now is narrower than last time, or maybe Dosaku was really much stronger.
I think the demographics near the top have changed a lot since Dosaku’s time.
Back then at any point in time there would only be a couple of players who could be called top pros, probably not much more than 5 players.
Nowadays there are easily 100 players who would qualify to be considered a top pro in Dosaku’s time. Like on goratings.org, Gu Li is ranked at #125 and Lee ChangHo is ranked at #218.
So yes, it’s much harder now to dominate as hard as Dosaku did.
WARNING: Minor spoilers below! Also, if you just want to enjoy the story, the information here may destroy it, so please read at your own risk.
There is only 1 game played in Chapter 2 of Go to Go (phew!). So here it is.
Original Game: Peichin Hamahika VS Honinbo Dousaku (4 Handicap)
Date: 24th May 1682
Game Result: B + 3 points
Yet another game from the legendary Honinbo Dousaku, but this time it’s Kousei playing as White. Black seems to be the top player from the Ryukyu Islands which is currently known as Okinawa. He played two 4-handicap games with Dousaku and tied with a score of 1-1. It’s interesting how Black still won this game in the end despite Dousaku playing well in the centre (and also in the manga). Well, in the manga it was never made clear who won in the end, but I guess there must be a reason why this game was chosen instead of the game that Dousaku won.
Just like it was mentioned in the manga, Black did play very thick with moves like R3 and B4.
After that, Black tried to attack the group on the left, but White managed to escape and protect the bottom at the same time with a series of good moves.
Through the ko in the centre, White made himself very thick by sacrificing the top left corner.
After that, Black kept making more mistakes in the endgame (about 17 points) but still managed to win by 3 points in the end. If the board was a bit bigger, Dousaku would probably have won this game.
No proof here. The fact that one dominates the others has nothing to do with how many players are competing to be it. Today noone dominates, but what about tomorrow? Dosaku may have dominated as many players as we have today, who knows?
I don’t think there is a need to introduce Dousaku, but for Hinaya Rippo (雛屋立圃) was not a Go player, but a famous painter/illustrator (you can see his works here 十帖源氏 illustrated the famous classical Japanese literature work 源氏物語) and a haiku poet. Hinaya Rippo was not his name, but his “stage name”. He was called Hinaya (雛屋) because he came from a family of making hina dolls. His real name was Nonoguchi Chikashige (野々口親重), thus also Nonoguchi Rippo (野々口立圃, or any other stage names 立圃, 立甫, 甫, 松翁, 日祐, 風狂子)
Senchi was famous enough, so I’ll just make a brief about Honinbo Retsugen (本因坊烈元). He was a student of Honinbo Satsugen (who brought back the Honinbo House glory and became Meiji and Godokoro), but lived in the shadow of his teacher. During his time, the castle games and the dispute between the great houses were both at their peaks. He left the most castle game records and was a strong player from quite a young age, but unfortunately losing to Senchi constantly. Since he never became Meiji and played a lot of games both as white and as black, he and his teacher were good templates to know how Japanese Go players played in medieval times and transitioned in the 18th and 19th centuries (starting from Senchi’s games).
This event of Ryukyu players coming to Japan was quite crucial in understanding the establishment of the Edo period dan system and records about how ancient diplomas were issued. It was also a record of how handicaps were set up for players of unknown strength. It was at the beginning of the dan system and teai (手合), and the oldest diploma would see writings about players being given 3 handicaps against a Jozu (上手). Effectively, the measurement of someone who claims to be a strong player and wishes to get a diploma (免状) had to play against Jozu (originally just meant recognized strong players) in 3 handicaps and won (just once, but it was more of a temporary strength, for starting the taei). Dousaku was the first to play 4-handicaps against an unknown strength player since he was Meiji, and very confident of his strength, likely wanted to solidify the dan system of half a stone per dan rank and true authority of the Great Houses. And Dousaku did win the first 4-handicap games, hence the extra second game where he “lost”. (Dousaku was such a strong player and mid-game fighter, the way he handled the center was a bit strange like he was testing black and let him live locally with some questionable small yose, since he already demonstrated his strength, there was no need to humiliate the Ryukyu diplomas). Maybe this is the reason why this game was chosen (strong enough to win, but no will to win)
Wow! I didn’t know he was actually linked to Genji Monogatari!
Maybe I was the only one who didn’t really know about Senchi 
Interesting that he kind of lost the game “intentionally”. But yeah maybe it makes sense considering that he only lost by 3 points.
I found the reason after reading Chapter 3
Maybe I’ll find some time to write about the drama in those eras involving the 4 great houses, where Yasui house played very crucial roles. And his styles (Great Senchi) and his student (also Senchi, minor Senchi) were very different, and probably the most distinct to be used in drama (one like to play super high opening with big fighting, and the other good with fixing local groups and yose and probably the strongest of the Yasui heads)
WARNING: Minor spoilers below! Also, if you just want to enjoy the story, the information here may destroy it, so please read at your own risk.
In Chapter 3 of Go to Go, only a bit of action happened on the same board as that in Chapter 2.
Original Game: Peichin Hamahika VS Honinbo Dousaku (4 Handicap)
Date: 24th May 1682
Game Result: B + 3 points
It’s the same game continued from the above position, but it’s a bit strange because the actual moves they played are not in the original kifu. The first move Hazuki plays seems to be this cut at 3. It shows that black exchanged 1 and 2, but this exchange was not played in the actual game. Maybe this is one of the variations in the book which contains this kifu?
I tried to deduce the next few moves from the manga as below.
They played until move 9 as above when Kousei commented that White’s centre territory shrunk and he may have lost if they continued playing.
After that they played two more moves until move 11 when Hazuki left. Move 11 is a good move that makes a miai of eating the 4 stones and the 2 stones. According to AI, Black is leading by about 22 points at this stage. Compared to the actual game where black was leading by about 14 points at this stage, this variation is indeed better than the actual game.
WARNING: Minor spoilers below! Also, if you just want to enjoy the story, the information here may destroy it, so please read at your own risk.
Chapter 4 to 6 of Go to Go focused on the game between Kousei and Hazuki. Let’s take a look at that game.
Original Game: Inoue Ansetsu VS Honinbo Genjo (2 Handicap)
Date: 2nd Jan 1820
Game Result: B + 1 points
Honinbo Genjo and Inoue Ansetsu are part of the Four Sages in Japan. Honinbo Genjo had a very powerful attacking style despite his calm demeanour. Inoue Ansetsu has many names such as Inoue Gen-an Inseki and Inoue Inseki. He’s famous for having a style that looks at the board as a whole, and apparently, this 2-handicap game was played when Inoue was young and is said by Genjo himself to be the achievement of a lifetime.
This is the situation at the end of Chapter 4. Kousei says that the advantage from the handicap is already gone and seems like Hazuki also thinks so. Actually, the AI still thinks that black has a 20-point lead, which hasn’t changed much from the start of the game. However, I can understand why Kousei thinks so because it seems like white has escaped successfully from the right side and the other parts are not that weak. For a human, it may be difficult to see the lead in this situation.
This is the situation in Chapter 5 where Hazuki had a very scary face and Kousei said that Hazuki could parry all his attacks. Indeed, black tried to do something on top, but white managed to parry all of it and get the outside while making sure the white groups were all alive. White gained some points and black’s lead diminished a little. Black is still leading at this point according to AI, but for a human, it does look difficult to play since black’s D4 is under attack and white has potential on the left side. Kousei even thought about resigning at this point in time.
This is the 7-16 move, which is the first move played in Chapter 6. It’s a shoulder-hit move, but I guess if they used the word shoulder-hit most readers wouldn’t understand, so they used 7-16. This was actually one of the top moves recommended by the AI as well, and its objective is to attack the centre group which is not completely alive yet, sacrificing the bottom left if necessary. Kousei started his counterattack from this move.
Eventually, the white group managed to live, but black also gained some at the bottom. The game is still good for black. White attaches at H4, trying to destroy the bottom black. The fight here was quite exciting and white gained back a lot of points.
Now the key is attacking white’s group at the bottom. Black’s moves at Q1 and R2 were questionable. Black’s 1 was also a mistake and should’ve played at 2 instead. After white played at 2, the game suddenly became closer.
White managed to live in the end but black also managed to eat the bottom right. Black’s lead had diminished to about 4 points.
This is the final state also shown in the manga. It’s really hard to count manually considering how many dead stones there are. Black made more mistakes in the endgame but eventually still managed to win by 1 point.
If you look at the AI graph alone, it seems like white played a good game but didn’t manage to catch up in the end. However, for humans, the game was quite complicated and black did well to keep the advantage until the end. Probably Inoue and Genjo thought differently when they were playing the game, but the thoughts of Kousei that his advantage was gone since the opening is still understandable.
Maybe @Counting_Zenist can share more interesting information about these two players or the game